DNC chief: 'Zero tolerance' for fraud

The chair of the Democratic National Committee on Thursday said her party has “zero tolerance” for voter fraud in the wake of a report tying a Democratic congressional campaign staffer to fraud and leading to his resignation.

“You know, isolated incidents, when they come up, they should be dealt with like this one was, and there’s zero tolerance for voter fraud,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on CNN’s “Starting Point.” “That’s the bottom line.”

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Her comments came a day after Patrick Moran, the son of Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) resigned from his position as field director of his father’s campaign, after being caught on tape appearing to detail how to commit voter fraud. The video was the project of conservative activist James O’Keefe’s organization, Project Veritas.

“It’s just indefensible and he was right to resign,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But look, the difference here is that, when something like that happens on our side, first of all, that’s one person, and he was quickly taken out of the campaign and we stressed our commitment to making sure that there is no tolerance for voter fraud. But let’s look at the Republican Party.”

Wasserman Schultz then pivoted to a discussion of connections between Republicans and incidents of voter fraud.

“[In] my state, Virginia and one other state … the Republicans paid a firm that was caught deliberately, fraudulently registering voters, tossing out some registrations that were Democratic voter registrations,” she said. “So the deep-seated, widespread voter fraud that the Republicans seem to have been continuing to contract this firm for, that’s what’s very disturbing.”

For his part, the younger Moran has said that he thought the undercover videographer was joking.

“In reference to the “O’Keefe” video, at no point have I, or will I ever endorse any sort of illegal or unethical behavior,” he said in a statement. “At no point did I take this person seriously. He struck me as being unstable and joking, and for only that reason did I humor him.”